+ PARK CITY 99: The 8% Solution, "Seeing Ourselves" at Sundance

“Nobody asks Oliver Stone how he feels about being a male filmmaker,”Sundance veteran Nancy Savoca told me recently. And I’ve yet to get acall asking me to write an article about the dozens of white guyssporting goatees in Park City this year. So why ask the female filmmakerquestions at all? Because women directed only 8 of 97 dramatic featurefilms at this year’s festival.

These women come from backgrounds as diverse as rural Kentucky andsuburban Sacramento; black and white; entrenched Hollywood screenwriterand former waitress. An intellectual coming of age story and an assemblepiece about L.A.’s music scene are not often thrown in the same genre.The common denominator is a woman sitting in the director’s chair. Andwhere she sits effects how the film is perceived. Even a Hollywoodaction film like “Deep Impact” (directed by Mimi Leder) is niched bymany as a movie with a woman’s touch. Gender becomes a unifying identityeclipsing many differences. “I’ve been on these all-women panels where Ilook around and think, what do I have in common with these people — ohyeah, we’re all girls,” commented Savoca (who is at Sundance premieringher latest feature, “24 Hour Woman.”)

When women earning $.74 to every male $1 sounds more cliched thanshocking, it is time to look up and see the glass ceiling. Women areradically under-represented in the upper management of most industries,including film. “It really concerns me that women are so complacent,especially in Hollywood,” Anders says. “I don’t know why women assumethey have equal rights.”

Both Anders and Savoca accept their roles as women filmmakers withpassionate realism. “I make films about women, 51% of the population ofthe globe,” explains Savoca. But the newer faces at Sundance vary intheir reactions to the gender specific tags attached to their films. Thegoal for Lisanne Skyler (“Getting to Know You“) is to be “judged as afilmmaker, not a female.” But Cauleen Smith (“Drylongso“) shrugs at thestamp female filmmaker, “I’m so used to labels that another one doesn’tbother me.” Toni Kalem (“A Slipping Down Life“) is not even sure whatthe phrase “women’s film” means except that “it’s used to impose alimitation on how the films are marketed.” And Audrey Wells (“The TruthAbout Cats and Dogs” writer and “Guinevere” director) prefers to avoidgender classification as much as possible. She believes, “If you canmake a good movie, they will run to your door. It’s about getting peoplethat first shot.”

“We see women’s first films a lot, but we seldom see their second,”observes Anders. “You have to be as aggressive with your second film asyou were with the first one.” And that’s something she doesn’t see womenfilmmakers doing enough, pushing to make the next movie and the oneafter that. “You’ll get immediate acceptance, but then 10 boys comealong who everybody loves just as much and you’re forgotten,” shecontinues, pointing out that very few female directors establish asignificant body of work. “You stick around for the second one and youfind out very quickly it’s not equal.”

The inequality shows up not just in the small number of women directingindies, but also further up the food chain. At the Directors Guild ofAmerica, A 22% female membership may sound comparatively high, but thepercentage of women actually directing is significantly lower. Thenumber of days worked by female directors is only 7% of the total Guildmember contract days.

The DGA blames the studios for not opening more doors to women. “Anyonereading these numbers has to be shocked that the major studios andproduction companies hire so few women and minority directors,”commented DGA President Jack Shea. The three picture deal with Tri-Star,that many filmmakers dream of netting with their first effort, is rarefor anybody, regardless of gender. But Anders, one of the best knownfemale indie filmmakers, isn’t signed with the majors. “I’d love to do abig budget studio film, but I just don’t think it’ll happen.” Early inher career a female studio executive told her, “If we can just take whatwe do, and what you do, and put them together. We’ll really havesomething.” That’s when Anders realized those two things do not exist inthe same space.

Savoca’s experiences with studio executives who say “I don’t get it”mirrors Anders. “I’ll go with whoever will finance me,” Savoca explains.“But if you’re not fitting into the fantasy of what a film is, they’renot going to give you their money.” The fantasy of women is bothbehavioral and physical. “No one will ever out-right say, ‘thischaracter is not attractive enough.’ They just say, ‘we’re not interestin making THIS kind of movie.'”

“Some of the younger women are making really audacious films. Way moreaudacious than guys who get a lot more attention,” Anders points out,referring to what she labels “middle-class boy vision.” “Nobody says,�Do you want to go see a film by a nerdy, white, middle-class guy whocouldn’t get laid in high school and now can get any girl he wantsbecause he’s a director?'” she observes. It’s still a man’s world.”

Toni Kalem, a veteran actress and first time director spent herprofessional life on men’s sets, some “generous” and “nurturing,” others“hurtful” and “mean.” While making “A Slipping Down Life,” adapted froman Ann Tyler novel, Kalem felt “that my being a woman enhancedeverything about the project. I really enjoyed the fact that a woman,who happened to me, could dictate a whole world.” After wrapping a “goodol’ boy teamster” told her, “When I first saw you, I didn’t think youcould do this, but you really pulled it off,” she recalls. “That’ssomething a man would never have to go through.”

Texas Teamsters are not the only ones questioning women’s ability totake on the tough job of directing. Articles published in the last yearcommenting on the shortage of female filmmakers offer motherhood andnurturing as one of the explanations for the lack of women at the helm.According to David Thomson of Movieline and “his wife,” women are toosecure, selfless and honest for the “Conceited. Destructive.Self-aggrandizing” role of film director. In Newsweek Laura Ziskin“suggested” that, “Once you give birth, you satisfy a creative urge in away that men can’t.”

“I know it was supposed to be funny, but the message comes through,”retorts Savoca. Right after she was married, her NYU film professoraired a similar argument against female directors. But Savoca (andAnders) went on not only to have children, but to make movies. ForKalem, motherhood gave her a behavior model other than the stereotypicalone of an abusive jerk: “I approached the whole thing like having achild.”

“We need to stop seeing ourselves through the lens of the dominateculture and start SEEing ourselves,” Cauleen Smith argues. Instead ofassuming women’s films are quiet movies about emotions, some womendirectors are pushing to redefine the “genre.” As Smith stresses, womenshould “take actions. . . not just wait for love.”